The Descent of Man
by sheepfairy
Summary: This isn't what she was expecting at all. BSGXMen Laura Roslin and Charles Xavier


**Title:** The Descent of Man

**Characters:** Charles Xavier, Laura Roslin

**Word Count:** 1150

**Spoilers:** Through 2x16 for BSG, and none for X-Men.

**Summary:** Earth was not what Laura had hoped it to be.

**A/N:** Written for the BSG Crossover Ficathon hosted by bantha-fodder over at lj. My prompt was _Xavier reveals himself to Roslin as a mutant for the greater good, Roslin discovers that a telepath makes interrogations/negotiations a helluva lot easier. _Which, well, I _sorta_ managed to hit. And for those in the reading audience who are unfamiliar with the comics' universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. is sort of like the U.N.'s version of the C.I.A.

When he first sees Laura Roslin in person, she is sitting on a stone bench overlooking the school's courtyard. She hears him approach her before he has had much of a chance to study her, and she looks slightly taken aback when she first sees him. He assumes that Valerie neglected to tell her about his legs when she arranged the meeting.

She recovers her composure quickly, though, and stands and smiles as he approaches her.

"Hello, Madam President. Welcome to my school," he says as he offers her his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Xavier," she replies, shaking his hand before sitting back down on the bench. "Dr. Cooper tells me that you're a civilian. I'm surprised they let me come to see you."

"I have some friends in high places. I'm just glad that you accepted my invitation."

"Dr. Cooper was very vague as to why you wanted to see me, actually. I just jumped at the opportunity to be planet side and away from S.H.I.E.L.D.," she says, and even though she's smiling as she says it she sounds irritated with her lack of freedom.

"I think I might be able to help you deal with the Cylon problem," he says, and she looks mildly surprised.

"I was told that the existence of the Cylons hadn't been released to the general public," she says.

"You don't seem too concerned that I know."

She shrugs. "It wasn't my decision," she replies. "And how do you propose to help?"

"Do they have mutants among your people, President Roslin?"

"No," she says. "We have nothing approaching the level of the people you have here. If there hadn't been telepaths at our first contact with the U.N., I probably wouldn't have believed that they really existed."

He nods, as that was the answer he had been expecting. "I built this institute, Madam President, and every individual here is a mutant, in addition to numerous others in the community who would be willing to help us."

She raises an eyebrow, and when she speaks her voice has a hint of hope in it. "What can they do?"

"Anything you could dream of."

About ten minutes into their second meeting he gets tired of avoiding the obvious subject. "I know that the cylons were created by your people," he says.

Roslin stiffens, but she does not try to deny it, nor does she seem surprised that he knows. She knows he is a telepath now, and she probably does not think it is worth the trouble to lie to him. "How do you know that?" she asks coldly, and the unspoken accusation is clear to him.

"I did not invade your mind," he says, but Roslin's expression remains skeptical. "But I'm afraid that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s telepaths are not quite as ethical, and they found out quite a lot about you while they were altering your language center to teach you English. And I have many sources in the government."

She doesn't answer, but he can tell her mood is shifting from righteous irritation to resignation.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't going to believe that it was an unprovoked attack by an alien race for very long at any rate," he says. "Especially not once they started translating your records."

"I didn't expect them to believe it for long, but we didn't feel as if we had much of a choice. If the Cylons have managed to follow our trail, then Earth has a good chance of being enslaved. The people in the military resent us enough for that, and I saw no reason to further alienate us. For all the good it did."

And she was probably right to have tried to guard her secrets. If they had not come in a fleet too large to hide from the civilian population, they probably would have been killed and dissected in labs hidden far away from the public eye. The military loves its secrets, too. He does not tell her this, but if their societies are really as similar as they appear, he probably does not need to.

"What else do they know that we didn't tell them?" she asks.

"Pretty much everything," he says. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes narrow and it is clear to him that she is angry. "This is frakking wonderful. We've been here for nearly two months, and your government trusts us so little that they won't even let more than ten of us planet side at a time. Even your civilian population dislikes us, and they haven't even been told about the Cylons yet," she says.

"Well, your mere existence is proof that many of our most deeply held theological and scientific beliefs are wrong. People were bound to be upset," he replies.

"Well, it's not as if they're the only ones that were disappointed," she says with edge of bitterness.

There's a pause in the conversation, as he's not quite sure how to respond to that.

"I'm sorry," she says after a second. "That was uncalled for."

"This isn't what you were expecting, was it?"

"No," she says. "Not even close."

He is discussing some of the more useful talents among his group of mutants when he sees her eyes drift and her head tilt to the side.

"Roslin?" he asks, and when she does not answer him he reaches out with his mind to figure out the problem.

_And all of sudden he no longer sees the inside of his office. All around him is a forest thick with trees and overgrown plants, and to his left a woman with blond hair is holding a miniaturized earth in her hand. _

"So many people on one little planet," she says. "And so many of them able to perform their own little miracles. We are very much looking forward to the day when we find it, and believe us, that day is coming soon."

_And before he can say anything, she changes and becomes a slimmer, paler woman, one more menacing than the first. "But you are wrong when you talk about history and evolution. Mutants aren't the next step," she says, and her eyes begin to glow red. _

"_We are," she says. _

_And he wants to think that this is some bizarre dream, a hallucination on Roslin's part, but he knows with an absolute certainty that the pale woman is real, and that she is telling the truth. _

He pulls back from Roslin's mind as quickly as he can. "Did you see that?" she asks, and she looks as if she's been up for three days straight even though a minute ago she was fine.

"Yes," he says. "You can see what's going to happen in the future. You told me that your civilization doesn't have mutants."

"We don't," she replies. "This isn't a mutation, this is prophecy. And it is something that

I had hoped to put behind me."

He disagrees, but he doesn't bother to argue the point with her.

"These things can be misleading, though," she says, trying to reassure him.

"Of course," he says, even though he knows they are both lying.


End file.
